With the gavel banging the 84th Texas Legislature into recess, legislators, lobbyists and those representing various interests headed home.

Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association, took the opportunity to return to the association’s Midland office, where he discussed the just-ended legislative session.

“It was interesting,” he said. “I think you had a lot of positioning between the new leadership and within the Republican Party itself. That was a backdrop to the session.”

Thanks to the strength of the state’s oil and gas industry, “the state was in good shape financially with no big (budgetary) holes to fill and no pain inflicted on various agencies,” Shepperd said.

Social issues such as early childhood education, school choice, immigration and ethics reform were the dominant issues legislators faced rather than energy issues, he said.

“Things like that took up a lot of the oxygen in the room. You had people walking around with guns over their shoulders, demanding open carry. That dominated the session,” he said.

Oil and gas industry officials urged legislators to be cautious with the revenue forecast, he said.

“I think they’re basing the budget on $65 oil. In February, the price of oil was still in the $40s, so we were nervous about a shortfall. But maybe, knock on wood, the budget will survive. It’s hard to predict what will happen in the third and fourth quarters,” he said.

Additional funding for roads, especially in areas impacted by oil and gas activity, was received.

“Every chance we get, we’re talking to the Texas Department of Transportation about more money for roads here, and we continue to do that. Folks say that, ‘With low oil prices, there’s less activity so we can move that money to other areas.’ And we have to tell them, ‘No, we have a much bigger population now, more activity, we still have needs out here.’ There’s a lot of work to do,” he said.

Shepperd was pleased with the passage of House Bill 40, which essentially prohibits hydraulic fracturing bans. The bill, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, prevents individual communities from banning hydraulic fracturing or drilling but allows them to regulate surface operations with reasonable regulations over noise or the distance wells must be from housing, schools or businesses. City regulations in existence for at least five years are exempt.

“In Midland-Odessa, we worked hard with the various stakeholders and had no issues like other areas,” Shepperd said.

Seismic activity and a Southern Methodist University report indicating disposal wells contributed to a rise in earthquakes in North Texas also occupied legislators. Shepperd said $4.5 million was given to the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University Texas to purchase equipment and study seismicity over the next two years.

“One of the authors of the SMU study was asked if he thought disposal wells were causing earthquakes in Irving, and he said he found that hard to believe. He also said there was no correlation between hydraulic fracturing and earthquakes,” Shepperd said.

Geologists and other experts will study whether increased seismic activity is caused by oilfield activity or is a natural phenomenon, he said. And, if the industry needs to make changes to help prevent seismic activity, “the Railroad Commission stands ready to oversee those changes.”

The Railroad Commission will undergo Sunset Advisory Commission review in 2017 during the next legislative session.

“We’re extremely interested in Sunset review. The Railroad Commission has had a hard time under Sunset review the last two sessions, but by and large most believe Railroad Commission leadership is doing a good job taking on new issues like seismicity,” Shepperd said.

“It’s time-consuming and costly to work through the tedious process of Sunset review, and we favored moving the date back to give the agency breathing space and letting it get new information technology in place. We were disappointed the review wasn’t extended six years to put the commission back on a regular schedule. That’s something we’ll work on this summer,” he said.

The Railroad Commission received an additional $2.8 million, in addition to its base budget, that will let the agency continue its IT upgrades and add more field inspectors. Approximately $2.2 million will be spent to enhance safety inspections.

“We support more funds for the Railroad Commission -- we ask a lot of that agency,” Shepperd said. “So much has changed -- with horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing requiring new rules or updated rules, concerns about seismicity, IT modernization.”

There were no water-related issues during the session, according to Shepperd.

“We particularly made a concerted effort to talk with all the groundwater districts. A lot of companies, including in the Permian Basin, are leading the way in water recycling and reuse, showing it can be economic, showing they’re being good stewards of the environment,” he said.

With the Texas Legislature adjourned, Shepperd will turn his attention to Washington, D.C., and federal matters. Both houses of the Texas Legislature passed resolutions supporting an end to the ban on exporting U.S. crude, and Shepperd said he’ll probably go to the nation’s capital later this month to urge Congress do address the issue.

He also plans to address moves by federal agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency on “Waters of the U.S.” The Endangered Species Act also will be a topic, he said.